As we told you a couple of days ago, the federal refugee resettlement contractorswere whipping their forces to tell their Senators to oppose a bill that had passed the House in November with broad bipartisan support. The contractors were so afraid of losing their Muslim ‘clients’ (a large portion of those for which they are paid by the head to bring to your towns).

Senate Dems showed their abject fear of Trump by bringing him into the debate as they did.

Yesterday, the Senate failed to get cloture and move the bill with enough votes to assure Obama would not veto it. From insiders we learned that the bill, if it ever passed and was signed by Obama, would have been a fig leaf and not done much to keep us safe from terrorists getting into your neighborhoods from places like Syria and Iraq.

The vote, however, was informative. All Democrats except Bernie Sanders who missed the vote, and two brave souls, voted to kill the bill. Republicans including the three US Senators running for President voted to move the bill.

The two Dems who bucked the party (and the grassroots working for contractors) were West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp.

U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday narrowly blocked legislation that would slow the entry of refugees from Syria and Iraq to the United States in a contentious vote cloaked in presidential election-year politics.

Democratic Senators Manchin and Heitkamp voted with Republicans to at least say they have concerns about security screening for refugees from Syria and Iraq.

The vote was 55-43, with “yes” votes falling short of the 60 needed to advance the Republican-backed measure in the 100-member Senate.No Republicans voted against the bill, and only two Democrats backed it.

Among other things, the bill would halt the admission of refugees and require high-level U.S. officials to verify that each refugee from Iraq and Syria posed no security risk before being allowed into the United States. [This is the part of the bill that was so weak because the Obama Administration (and a Hillary one too) would simply verify that screening was adequate.—ed]

Republicans said the tighter screening was essential to ensure the safety of Americans and prevent attacks within the country by Islamic State and other militant groups.

“This bipartisan bill would allow Washington to step back, take a breath and ensure it has the correct policies and security screenings in place,” Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in the Senate before the vote.

Dems tried and failed to bring Donald Trump into the debate. Who in their right mind would have gone along with this trick!

Democrats also sought to play politics. They tried and failed to reach a deal with Republicans to set up a vote on an amendment establishing a religious test for would-be immigrants.

That vote was planned to see if Republicans would side against presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has advocated barring Muslims from entering the United States.

The Syria refugee bill passed the House by a large margin days after the Nov. 13 Islamic State attacks in Paris. The bill was supported by dozens of Democrats who defied Democratic President Barack Obama’s veto threat ...